On December 14th...

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872 Pope Adrian II died.

1542 King James V of Scotland died.

1546 Astronomer Tycho Brahe was born.

1575 The Polish Parliament selected Istvan Bathory as King of Poland.

1751 The first military academy in the world, the Theresian Military Academy, was founded in Austria.

1774 New Hampshirites captured Fort William and Mary at Portsmouth Castle.

1782 The Montgolfier Brothers launched the world's first hot-air balloon.
1782 Charleston, South Carolina, was evacuated by the British.

1788 King Charles III of Spain died.

1793 The first state road was authorized, from Frankfurt, Kentucky, to Cincinnati, Ohio.

1798 David Wilkinson patented a nut and bolt machine.

1799 George Washington, first President of the United States, died.

1819 Alabama was admitted as the 22nd state.

1829 American politician John Mercer Langston was born.

1861 Prince Albert of Great Britain died.

1873 Naturalist Louis Agassiz died.

1889 The American Academy of Political and Social Science was organized in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1893 Aviator Laura Ingalls was born.

1895 King George VI of Great Britain was born.

1896 The Glasgow (Scotland) Underground Railway was opened.
1896 James Doolittle, American Air Force General, was born.

1897 U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith was born.

1902 Actress Frances Bavier was born.
1902 Julia Grant, wife of U.S. President Ulysses Grant, died.

1908 Actor Morey Amsterdam was born.

1911 An expedition led by explorer Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole.
1911 Musician Spike Jones was born.

1913 Greece formally took possession of Crete.

1915 Jack Johnson became the first black world heavyweight boxing champion.

1920 Football player George Gipp died.

1927 Iraq gained independence from the United Kingdom.

1932 Singer Charlie Rich was born.

1934 The first streamlined steam locomotive was introduced, in Albany, New York.

1935 Actress Lee Remick was born.

1941 The Bears beat the Packers 33-14 in the first ever NFL division playoff.

1943 Dr. John Harvey Kellogg died.

1944 The U.S. Congress established the rank of General of the Army (5-star General).

1946 Togo became a trusteeship territory of the United States.
1946 Actress Patty Duke was born.

1947 The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) was founded in Daytona Beach, Florida.
1947 Stanley Baldwin, three-time Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, died.

1948 Actress Dee Wallace-Stone was born.

1950 The United Nations General Assembly established the High Commission for Refugees.
1950 Olive Ann Beech was elected president of Beech Aircraft Corporation.

1953 Author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings died.

1955 The Tappan Zee Bridge, in New York, opened to traffic.

1959 A new world altitude record of 103,395.5 feet was set by Captain Joe B. Jordan in an F-104C Starfighter plane at Edwards Air Force Base.

1960 A revolt against the rule of Emperor Haile Selassié I of Ethiopia broke out in Addis Ababa while the Emperor was on a state visit to Brazil.
1960 The United Nations General Assembly approved, by a vote of 89 to 0, a resolution calling for immediate steps toward complete independence for trust and nonself-governing territories.

1961 A school bus was hit by a train at a crossing near Greeley, Colorado, killing 20 children.

1962 Mariner 2 made the first U.S. fly-by of another planet (Venus).
1962 All 50 persons aboard were killed when a Panair do Brasil Constellation crashed in the Amason jungle minutes before it was due to land at Rio de Janeiro, Argentina.

1964 Actor William Bendix died.

1965 A cyclone and high waves in the Bay of Bengal area of East Pakistan swept at least 12,000 persons to their deaths.
1965 The Dickenson Bay Agreement was signed by several Caribbean nations, establishing the Caribbean Free Trade Association.
1965 Gemini VI and Gemini VII became the first two American spacecraft to rendezvous in space.
1965 Queen Salote Tupau of Tonga died.

1967 Surveyor 6 became the first man-made craft to lift off from the Moon.
1967 The United Nations admitted South Yemen as its 123rd member.

1977 Saturday Night Fever premiered in New York City, New York.

1981 Israel annexed the Golan Heights.
1981 Max Kohl, founder of Kohl's Department Stores, died.

1984 Howard Cosell retired from "Monday Night Football."

1985 Baseball player Roger Maris died.

1986 Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, took off from Edwards AFB, California, on the first ever non-stop, non-refueled flight around the world.

1988 U.S. Senator Stuart Symington died.

1989 Physicist and human rights activist Andrei Sakharov died.

1991 The ferry boat Salem Express sank in the Red Sea, killing 476 persons.

1993 Actress Myrna Loy died.

1994 Construction began on the Three Gorges Dam, China.
1994 Orval Faubus, former Governor of Arkansas, died.

1998 Actor Norman Fell died.

2004 The Millau Viaduct, the highest bridge in the world, officially opened near Millau, France.

2012 Adam Lanza killed 26 persons, including 20 children, and then himself at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

2015 A bus plunged off a bridge into the Balboa River near Rosario de la Frontera, Argentina, killing 43 frontier policemen.

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This page was last updated on September 02, 2018.